The State, the Investor, and the Railroad; The Boston & Albany, 1825-1867
The railroad from Boston to Albany, opened to traffic in 1841, was the first major trunk line completed in America, and it established important precedents for nineteenth-century railroading. Contrary to past assumptions, the road was built less as a result of Boston's urge to compete with the Port of New York than because of the desire of Boston and Springfield business leaders to open the interior of Massachusetts to industrial development.
The situation of Massachusetts in the 1820's was unique. Unlike New York and Pennsylvania with their newfledged economies and their large western hinterlands in the first flush of development, Massachusetts had an old economy with its agriculture undermined by the westward movement and its profitable trade within the British Empire destroyed by the Revolution. Its need was to industrialize.
Mr. Salsbury describes the response of Massachusetts to the completion of New York State's Erie Canal in 1825 and then analyzes the complex political and economic forces within Massachusetts that prevented the construction of a purely state-owned railroad to link Boston with Albany. By 1831 a textile boom provided the incentive and the resources necessary for the construction of a railroad from Boston to Worcester as a private venture. The success of the Boston & Worcester, along with the in- creased confidence of the public, then induced the state to lend financial support.
Hardback with dust jacket, 16x24cm, 404 pages, black & white photographs
Condition: Good with a little foxing to edges of book
ISBN: 9780674835801
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